1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to collecting, modeling, and providing access to information.
2. Description of the Related Art
A number of attempts have been made to retrieve data from a business organization's various data sources (called back-end data sources) and to present that data to users. An organization's various back-end data sources may contain different types and formats of data, including relational data, point data, time-series data, and object data. Relational data comprise data from multiple tables of multiple fields. The tables may be related to each other through indexes. Point data is single-type data typically associated with manufacturing systems. For example, a data system may continuously collect a motor's operating speed and operating temperature as point data. Unlike relational data, point data typically are not comprised of multiple tables. Time-series data are data that store the change in data value over time. Object data are data represented by objects. The concepts of object, object-oriented design, object-oriented programming and object-oriented databases are known to those skilled in the art.
Data warehouse products and more custom database approaches typically collect data from back-end data sources and deposit the data into a new data warehouse (or data mart) for data analysis and presentation. Some data mining processes operate on data warehouses to provide detailed analysis such as marketing and sales trends, and to test hypotheses such as customer buying patterns. However, those analyses are usually only available to a few analysts and executives in an organization. In addition, a data warehouse usually stores historical data for long term analysis, but is not suitable for real time or near real time applications.
Application packages such as Intellution Dynamics Package by Intellution, Inc. of Foxborough, Mass. and In Touch by Wonderware Corporation of Irvine, Calif. provide for visualization of plant operational data in some manufacturing systems. These packages have very limited abilities to retrieve and present relational data typically associated with other manufacturing systems and non-manufacturing systems such as enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems. Typically, the major limitations include an inability to monitor relational data as it changes over time, navigate the relational data for more detailed monitoring or status, and to find supporting details. Because they do not provide access to both point data and relational data, enterprises often have to use multiple systems to provide data visualization, navigation and analysis of various types and formats of data. Using multiple systems often results in high financial and computing expenses and programming and administrative complexity.
Some systems convert back-end data into relational data stored in a relational database for selection, analysis and visual presentation. Such a relational database typically needs to be managed by a database administrator in order to handle the complexity of a relational database comprising multiple tables and indexes. This is especially true when data has to be converted and acquired from different back-end systems. In addition, those systems cannot utilize the advantages of object data.
Some systems convert point data and relational data from back-end data sources into point data to present to users. Since the back-end data are converted into point data, those systems cannot utilize the advantages of object data and also lose any benefits associated with relational data.
Other systems convert back-end data into object data, but fail to provide access to the object data using a class-based representation model. What is needed is a system and method providing access to back-end data in object form, in real time, and using a class-based component and view model.